


in fire and ash

by mattholomuse



Series: McGenji Week 2k17 [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, genji and jesse continue causing mischief post fall, lov the boys savin each other. only good kink, matts mcgenji week fics: a thousand near death experiences, theres fire so fair warning, this 1 is messy........... fun concepts tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 06:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12881706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattholomuse/pseuds/mattholomuse
Summary: Jesse isn't going to die like his father, and he's not going to let Genji die, either.





	in fire and ash

**Author's Note:**

> mcgenji week day 6 - smoke

Sons die like their fathers. In fire, engulfed by smoke. They die with clouded lungs and heat-seared eyes. They die belly-down, clothes torn and body bleeding, wondering where their life went wrong, wondering if their father was as scared as they are. 

Jesse McCree did not know what had set off the explosion. One moment he had been sneaking through the hall, wood paneling creaking beneath every footstep, and the next he was inhaling ash. 

His first thought was simple: _Genji._

_Where was Genji?_

Jesse forced his aching body to rise, ignoring the pangs and throbs in his ribcage. The back of his head bumped a fallen, charred rafter just hard enough to spur him forward. Everywhere he looked, he saw heat. Fire and embers and soot. 

A few minutes ago, the place had been a mansion of intricately carved panelling and thousand-dollar paintings by artists of every age and era. The staircase spiralled into the ceiling, where was built another floor of paintings, statues, chairs carved of elephant tusk. Jesse had thought it all mildly appalling - he had not found it so appalling as to deserve to be blown to rubble.

“Genji?” he called hoarsely. Smoke clawed at his eyeballs. Tears carved trails through the dirt dusting his face. When he wiped his cheeks, away came a thin coat of mud. It dried quickly in the heat, soon only a streak on the dark leather of his glove.

There was no answer. The last he had seen Genji, it had been when they separated. 

_You charm the guests,_ Genji had said. _I’ll steal the data. They’ll never know what hit them._

Somehow, Jesse got the impression that their hosts knew exactly what had hit them and when.

“Genji!” he called again, desperately fanning smoke away from his face with his hat. Jesse drew his black-and-white bandana over his mouth and nose. The rest of his suit was torn, burnt, but his bandana had somehow survived. Luck, he supposed. Life had to give him something. 

_“Genji!”_ he called once more, knowing full well he would receive no response. 

“Fine,” Jesse mumbled. “I’ll do it myself.”

He walked, and with every step pain shot through his ankle. Jesse lifted his foot, rolled it in the air, determined he’d need to wrap it the moment he got out of here. For now, he trudged on, breathing through his monochrome bandana and nudging aside debris as it appeared before him. 

The ceiling creaked dangerously. A chunk of wood fell from a rafter, blinking like a great red eye. Jesse coughed.

_I gotta get out of here,_ he thought. _I’m going to die in here. I’m_ not _going to die in here._

But he needed to find Genji, who, as far as he knew, was buried under a pile of burning wood. Genji could have been burning alive, an entire wing of a house pressing down on him. Jesse grit his teeth. He wouldn’t lose Genji too.

Smoke coiled around his neck like a boa, its stinging teeth pressing deeper into his throat. Something was crawling down his throat, ripping it up with fiery claws, sucking the moisture from his tongue.

Jesse hacked, and the sound rattled in his chest, nearly drowned out by the roar of flame. His tears evaporated halfway down his face. Dust filled in the trails they’d cut down his cheeks. Jesse felt like hell, and looked like the dead.

“Genji!” he called hoarsely, stumbling past what had once been a chair; it lay now as a pile of cinders, hissing and popping at passersby. “Genji!”

Nothing. Then, a distant squeak - a whimper, or a yelp. Jesse froze, ears perked. Silence. He took a ragged breath and called again:

“Genji! Genji, if you’re here, yell!” 

Through the roar of flame and the clatter of a crumbling home, Jesse heard it. It was distant, quiet, muffled by layers of smoke. What it was Jesse could not fully determine - a scream, a shout, a desperate plea for help. 

“Genji!” he said, rushing for the stairs. Jesse stumbled his way up, wood collapsing in his wake. A railing split from the staircase, tumbling to the burning floor below. The building creaked dangerously.

Jesse burst through a blackened door, knocking it clean off its hinges. It slammed into what remained of a desk and some piece of tech, too much of a puddle to determine what it might once have been.

Buried beneath a blazing bookshelf, a hand wiggled, shoving aside ash and kindling only for more to replace it. What lay beneath the hand cried out in pain as an ember popped near its pinkie finger. 

Jesse was shoveling through obliterated books before he even knew what he was doing. Flames kissed his flesh hand, but he could not find it in him to care. A few blisters were nothing to Genji’s life. A few blisters were nothing to the last person Jesse had, and the only one he loved.

Genji’s knuckles emerged, then his palm, his wrist, his elbow. When finally Jesse unearthed Genji’s face, a dry sob ripped through him. He kept digging, and Genji clawed at the floor. They freed his second arm and his legs, from there Genji scrambled from the debris.

“Window,” Genji wheezed. He pointed across the room, through the smoke and a flickering gate of fire. “Go.”

Jesse hauled Genji to his feet. He knew full well that jumping out of a third-story window was more than likely to kill one or both of them, but he found himself unable to care. Genji in tow, he hobbled forward, shattering the splintered frame of the glass with his prosthetic elbow. It tumbled to the earth, Jesse and Genji in its wake.

He felt a bone crack as he hit the ground. His adrenaline held the hurt at bay, too keen on urging him to safety to drag him into immobility.

Jesse coughed once, hard, before tearing his bandana off and throwing it to the wind. He had started the night in a fancy suit, ended it with a busted rib, belly-down in a flowerbed.

“Genji…” he said hoarsely. “Are you…?”

Genji shifted. “I am. Somehow. And I have something that makes this disaster worth it.”

A whirr as Genji’s arm plates shifted. With a _pop!,_ a device barely the width of Jesse’s pointer finger emerged into the night.

Jesse’s eyes went wide. “You got it? After all this?”

“Yeah. Now we can-” Genji winced. “-find out exactly who Talon is after. And who might have wanted to blow this shithole up.”

Jesse rested his head in the grass, gazing up at the burning building like it was a beautiful night sky. “Maybe we ought to give it a little more credit,” he breathed.

“Why?”

Jesse huffed painfully. “‘Cause it sure does burn well, don’t it?”

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! thanks for tuning into my mcgenji week fics! unfortunately, due to time constraints, i didn't have time to whip up a fic for day 7. i would have liked to write for the moraggians vigilante au, the ever-popular demon hunter/supernatural aus, or alfheimrs farm/family au. check them out, and with luck & determination, i'll see you all next year!


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